University of Virginia Library

Scene II.

—Callirrhoë's Home. She is spinning.
Callirrhoë
(sings).
[Enter Nephele.]
What mean these crimson vine-leaves round thy feet,
My Nephele? Why is thy hair unbound,
Thy polished cheek rent with the bramble scar,
And thy bright lips discoloured? What! In tears?

Nephele.
Callirrhoë, oh! hide me in thy gown;
It is so perilous a grief, a shame
So wild and strange that I must tell thee of;
I tremble to remember it, and more
To tell it open-faced. To the red bower
Of oleander, by the forest-stream,
Where thou and I in girlish solitude
So oft have hidden for sweet conference,
I went, and looking up, saw—not thy clear
Calm brows, Callirrhoë—a face as bright
As burnished shield, with hair that looked alive,
And cloak of shining hide. I lay as still
As if a leopard couched there; but she came,
The wondrous creature, threw her spells on me,
And emptied my young heart as easily
As from a pomegranate one plucks the seeds.
And then she drew me, in caressing arms,
By secret pathways, to the temple-gates,
Where stood Coresus.

Callirrhoë.
The new Bacchic priest?
My father likes him not, thinks that the gods,
In scorn of mortal insolence, connive
At this chaotic fury in men's wits.

Nephele.
Callirrhoë, had you been there I think
You would have saved me. It seemed different
When great Coresus turned and looked on me.
He is himself a god. He beckoned me,
As the mild bull Agenor's child. We drank;
I let him loose and wreathe my hair alone.
He asked me—had I strength to dedicate
Myself to the delivering god. I felt
The Mænads gather round me. I was doomed,
And as a bride, half-swooning in the flare
Of Hymen's torches is borne blindly off,
I was caught up by the great choric throng,
And in a daze of wonder found myself
Whirling the thyrsus. . . . It may be I swooned.
When I awoke it was quite still. I thought
To creep home quietly, but my strange dress,
And a deep shame and wonder at myself,
Made me seek shelter with thee.

Callirrhoë.
Yes, thou shalt
Rest thee in mine own bed, and afterwards
I will anoint thy cheeks and braid thy hair,
Thou foolish child; and when less piteous
Thine aspect, I will give thee thy full due
Of blame. Now to my room.
[Exeunt.
[Re-enter Callirrhoë.]
(Sings.)
Well, I must scold her for her wilfulness,
And take her back, in penitence and tears,
To her old tasks. My spindle strikes the ground.
How strong of brain and heart perforce must be
The Fates who spin our lives, from the confused
And tangled mass of Destiny withdrawing
Fibres that form the web of our existence.
Oh! work terrific, solemn! Yet I'd be
A kind fate to my brother and my sire.
This thread should be the love of Nephele.
For when Emathion tells her father's praise,
“Not Omphale more cunning at the loom.”
And when I question archly—“Thou the god
Caught in her toils?” he turns from me and laughs.
And for my father. . . . But necessity
Dominates fate! Then is it well, indeed,
I cannot spin their lives for those I love;
Else had I died sooner than twist the black,
Thick thread of blindness through my father's days.
I wish Emathion would come! 'Tis late.
“See that the gods thy spinning love.”
[Noise without.]
'Tis he, my glorious brother, radiant
From the palæstra.

[Enter Emathion.]
Emathion.
At the spindle still,
My nimble-fingered, grave Callirrhoë?
Like feast day, I put by the work. The gods
Love not late spinning.

Callirrhoë.
I have nearly done.
Be patient, for I'm spinning you your life.
Twisting such threads of deep-dyed happiness,
As might inspire with proud impiety,
And ruin you.

Emathion.
What doom hangs in this thread?
Say, does the fibre run along with gold?

Callirrhoë.
A thing more precious.

Emathion.
Health, strong-sighted age,
Still beautiful?

Callirrhoë.
Nay, will you urge me still?

Emathion.
I'll threaten you ere long.

Callirrhoë.
Well, 'tis the love
Of Nephele. Good brother, you were warned,
And now!—But where's our father, for at noon
Your careful hand was guardian to his steps
That would to town? You have not left him lone,
Sightless among the crowd of seeing men?

Emathion.
I left him chatting with a hoary friend
Of tedious, ancient days, of unknown wars,
And men, whose names were but a link of sounds
Unto my recent ears. 'Tis wonderful
How old men when together will re-thrash
The out-thrashed past!

Callirrhoë.
I know that age's tardy converse, dull
With iterated stale experience,
Chafes youth's hot-blooded moods as station'd rock
The running stream. 'Tis easier far for me,
Who lead so still a life, to keep from fret;
The lake is always quiet round the stone.
Emathion, forgive; but the old man
Complains he rarely sees you with his hand,
Who wast his eyes' great object. Oftener
Be near to him. . . .

Emathion.
Poor father, I will sit
My hand in his when next he fills the hearth.

Callirrhoë.
My kind Emathion! I dare not pass
The door, now darkness mixes with the light,
Like dark wine spreading through clear water, yet
I'm ill at ease. Our father should be here.
'Tis growing dark, oh, not for him! But still
'Tis late. Emathion, step out and look.

Emathion.
Callirrhoë,
He told me I might leave him.

Callirrhoë.
Yes, I know.
[Exit Emathion.
So beautiful,
So gentle and so kind! I'm glad I told
About my father's plaint. Poor old blind eyes,
That cannot see him in his loveliness,
Most pity-worthy is your lack of sight!
I'm tired of spinning! In the viny sweeps
Of sunshine on the hills, if a god lurk,
Deliverer of women from their toil
In household darkness to the broad sweet light,
Do they so ill to flee to him for joy?
“Can it be meant,” I often ask myself,
“Callirrhoë, that thou shouldst simply spin,
Be borne of torches to the bridal-bed,
Still a babe's hunger, and then simply die,
Or wither at the distaff, who hast felt
A longing for the hills and ecstasy?”
The fair twinned sister of the Delian
Must empty the rich passions of her heart
Where purple arbute-boughs encompass her,
In safest silence, or the bosky oak
Lets not a sigh escape. She must be mute,
The fair twinned sister of the Delian.
For him, the sunshine and the song; for her,
The virgin lip and the inviolate shade.
Hear me, thou holy Huntress, and protect
My thoughts from lawless wandering beyond bound
Of thy own sacred precincts. Steps! of two!
Dear father!

[Enter Machaon and Emathion.]
Machaon.
He is safe at Cleitophon's.
I came lest you should fear, and on my way
I met my friend.

Callirrhoë.
My kind Machaon, thanks!
I own that anxious fear had just looked in
At door o' my heart. But enter.

Emathion.
Yes, I'd have
These Mænads cleared away. I hate their cries.

Machaon.
As peacock-shrieks at night.

Emathion.
I hate their wild
Contorted forms.

Machaon.
Like pines on Cithæron.
Your sister goes for water to the stream
That makes your doorway pleasant at all hours.
A rare and lusty maiden! Why, the jar
Sits on her head with firmer majesty
Than Rhea's towery crown. Lo, she returns,
With red and watery fingers, and a pot
Filled justly to the brim. Callirrhoë,
Give me a draught!

Callirrhoë.
The little twy-eared bowl—
Emathion, fetch it.

Emathion.
I don't know its place.

Callirrhoë.
I'll go.

[Exit.
Machaon.
'Tis pity you're too old to learn
(To Callirrhoë, who re-enters).
A cup-bearer to whom the gods should rise.
And now I've risen, I must straightway home.
My mother had my supper on the board—
A quail! I have not told you that I met
Megillus—in his head a thunder-storm,
Of which the lightning flashed from out his eyes.
It seems his daughter's made off to the hills.

Emathion.
Never!

Machaon.
Why, cheeks are Tyrian in a trice,
Emathion? Well, well! good-bye, fair friend.

[Exit.
Callirrhoë.
Brother, 'tis true. She lies upon my bed.
She was deceived, is sorry. Take her home.
If you would take her home, she might be spared
From punishment and tears—two gloomy blights
You should protect your rose from.

Emathion.
She has thorns.
I will not meet her parents.

Callirrhoë.
Fetch her nurse.

Emathion.
She ill deserves protection, yet in this
I'll be her slave to-night. Callirrhoë,
I threw the discus far beyond the rest.

Callirrhoë.
I'm very glad.

Emathion.
You only love too much
Your idle brother. I must have a kiss!
You were too dread for touch of mortal lip
While you were spinning Fate.

[Exit.
Callirrhoë.
The twilight falls
In showers of darkness. She will tell me all
The mystery of the effulgent night,
Up in the bluer dark among the stars,
Will Nephele. They say the new god shares
Pan's maziest secrets in deep fellowship;
That the birds speak and even the brooks reveal
The thoughts of their clear currents. Every day
I fill my pitcher by the bubbling stream,
Close to the sycamore. It seems a girl
Full of sweet impulse. I would gather her
To my still bosom, and receive her love;
But we are sundered. What if this new god
Of the warm vineyards and the budding trees
Could draw her trembling spirit to the brink?
It cannot be;
Else had our fathers known and worshipped him.
I reverence my father's old grey head;
I reverence antiquity, the hoar
Aspect of Time. What folly to revere
The headstrong, blustering present, Time's untrained,
Immodest youth! The elder age alone,
With Nestor-like authority, can hush
To-day's rough disputants. I hear its voice
Proclaiming the eternal pieties
These Mænads have be-mocked. I'll wake the child,
Ere my thoughts grow too angry; strip from her
The ivy meshes, cleanse her lips from stain,
And dress her in white vesture meet for maid.

[Exit